The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1887-11-24
STRAY BITS.

A row round Ireland in an open boat has
been attempted by a venturesome sailor who
started from Belfast Tough recently.
Asilver haired patron of the Fifth Avenue
hotel, New York, who has lived there for
twenty-five years, claims that in that time
his lodging and meals have cost him 500, 900.
The ALASKAN Indian is prominently the
dude Of his race. He is always clad in hand
some furs or blankets, and carries walking
stick which Is often a beautiful specimen of
elaborate carving.
The man who blows the cornet in rural
brass band down in Maine is six feet and ten
inches tall, and the band is looking for a
drum major that won't look like a midget
prancing in front of him.
The Jackson (1dich) police force. sixteen in
number, weighs 2,SS2 pounds, is Gao years
old. and "a feet in height. Its feet are 800
inches in lcngth, it wears a size 1l6 hat and
has 527 buttons on its clothing.
Mosquitoes in China have very poisonous
sting. In Tientsin hospital there were at
one time last summer a man with an absceSs
in his face and another with blood poisoning
from the bite of the insects.
The forfeited railroad grant in Michigan
held by fraud for nearly thirty years is being
pre-empted with rush. L'Anse is nearly
depopulated. Even the editor of its one
paper has dropped his shears and gone into
the wilderness.
Two families occupying the same house in
Wallingford, Conn, fought long and bitterly
until the woman on the first floor burned
feathers and cayenne pepper. Then the
woman on the second floor capitulated and
moved out.
The original Bartlett pear trees, named
after Enoch Bartlett, still stand on his
grounds, near Boston, and are over fifty
years old. Twenty years ago a new top was
grated upon these old trees and they still
bear fine fruit.
A letter addressed to ''the best lawyer" in
Washington was received few days ago
from man in jefferson, Tex, who wanted
to get an opinion on some original poems
which he inclosed. Poets have to proceed
cautiously in Texas
The Klamath Indians have built up con-
siderable carrying trade along the Pacific
coast. In their large canoes, hewn out of the
solid trunks of immense trees, they carry
dairy and farm products for the settlers and
return with groceries and other supplies.
At Barre, VT, is being quarried an i'm
mense block of granite to be used in a Cali
fornia bank vault. It lis to be twenty-five
feet long, five feet thick and five feet wide,
and it will require thirty span Of horses to
draw it four miles to the railroad station.
An English lock maker claims to have per-
fected door that can be used in public
buildings that will lessen the chances Of ac-
cident in times of panic or real danger 1t
can be opened from the outside only by q
key, but a slight pressure from within
causes it to swing open outward,
Many years ago the grounds wherein the
Atlanta exposition now stands was sold to
Mr. Miles Dobbins, of Cobb county, for
$780, This year the 1917 acres were sold to
tue Piedmont stock company for $40, 000
This shows the increase Of values in real
estate in and about Atlanta.
The Pitcairn islanders, the descendants of
British mutineors, still live happily and are
prosperous. A shipwrecked man from the
United States has married one Of the natives.
The islanders still keep the old country names,
Young, McEvoy and Christian, and want
little except nails and fish hooks.
A passenger on a Georgia railroad, with O
ticket to Waters Station, found that the train
would not stop there. After appealing in
vain to the conductor, he went to the front
platform of the rear coach, drew out the
coupling pin, set the brake, and, when the
car slackened its speed, jumped off into the
darkness. 1t was not until the train reached
l;eLo hot h. To-
Of the car was discovered.
The largest orange ever produced in Flor
| ida has been plucked from Gardner S. Har
| dee's grove in Brevard county. The variety
| is known as the London navel. The orange
was 15% inches in circumference anC
| weighed e'yactly two pounds and two ounces
This specimen was not a grape fruit or pomc
or any other overgrown variety of the citrus
family aside from the orange, but was bona
flde orange in every respect.
The Congressional library at Washington
will cover Ill 900 square feet, more than two
and half acres Mr.. Smithmoyer, to whom
the library has been intrusted, has carried
on, says The American Architect, elaborate
tests of the resisting power of the soil OF
which it will stand. A loaded car wa!
! brought to bear on the earth of the exca
waited trenches in such a way as to prove
that the resistance was equal to thirteen anC
half tons to the square foot. AS the esti
mated weight of the building is between two
and three tons to the square foot, the chances
of subsistence of walls and consequent dis
asters are reduced TO a minimum. The Ger
man parliament house covers 10000 square
feet, the Royal library at Munich $1,000
the library Of the British museum $4,000